Arturo's Island: A Novel

This novel just blew me away. I read a lot of books and I rarely give five stars with this level of enthusiasm. The book is about a boy's ecstatically fanatical devotion to his charismatic, difficult father, and how his relationship to him evolves over time. It is incantatory as lyric poetry, and has an originality of voice and a boldness of psychological reach to which only the most skilled of novelists can lay claim. The gorgeously rendered setting heightens the novel's power--the boy and his father live alone in a grand but dilapidated mansion on the hills of a small island off the coast of Naples. The writing was so vivid that after I put down the book, I had the feeling that I had been at the boy's side as he roamed the island's hills and explored its surrounding waters on his boat. And yet, in another way, I had the sense that the topography was merely a projection of the boy's inner life; in this book, outside and inside merge and blur deliciously. The specificity of the setting, the precision of the tone, the poetry of the language--this novel just doesn't let up. The book has the quality of a fable or a dream, in the best possible way. I came to this writer by way of Elena Ferrante, who was apparently a big fan of the author (see "Frantumaglia"). I am very grateful that I stumbled across her, as she is writer of rare insight and power. A book for fans of Ferrante, Tove Jansson, Tana French, Janet Gardam, and Marcel Proust, other masters of setting and psychology.

This wonderful book has it all: developed characters, unique plot, interesting setting. Though I am not fluent in Italian, the translation by Goldstein is literature at its finest. If you love Ferrante you will love Morante's Aurturo's Island. Highly recommended.

Superbly written/translated. Its odd and off-beat coming-of-age story moves relentlessly forward, leaving enough unsaid to achieve an entirely original effect. But the wonder of it is not so much its oddness and its poetry, but how deeply the author, and therefore the reader, cares about the central character and how deeply felt is her portrayal of his travails.

Was somewhat disappointed. It seemed very long, wordy, and sad. I was expecting so much more.

This book is so beautifully written, even in translation from the Italian. What an exceptional writer! I purchased THIS book after reading her first book (The Story).

I recall seeing the 1962 filmed version of this watching late night TV with my father back when I was thirteen or so. I haven't seen the film since then, but I remember it being very provocative and moody. Sort of like "The Summer of '42." Or maybe it was just my hormones.(I also recall seeing Sophia Loren in "Madame Sans Gene" with the Old Man. La Loren was wearing a peasant blouse and helping Napoleon's soldiers to shove a cannon into place. Whew. THAT I remember well.)But it's the book that's under consideration here. Frankly, I found it a bit disappointing. Whereas the film suggested things, the book states them outright - which is poorer, I think.Anyway... disappointing. See the film, if you can. (It hasn't been released, but I understand that it has played on TCM.)------------------------------------------------Update, 2016: I got the movie on DVD earlier this year and saw it after many years. The film *is* better than the book!

Set on a small island off the coast of Naples this novel follows the coming of age of Arturo Gerace. His mother having died in childbirth the boy is abandoned by his selfish father and raised by a male servant. The boy spends his days as a wild child roaming the island and living in a crumbling palazzo to which all women are banned. The father periodically returns home and the boy idolizes him. Where the father goes when he leaves no one knows. One day the father returns with his very young bride, only two years older than Arturo. While the writing is evocative and lyrical the pace is stultifying. Everything is so understated and ultimately predictable that I couldn't wait for it to end.

L'isola di Arturo, Arturo's Island, is Elsa Morante's second novel. Published in Italy in 1957, it was very successful at the time, and has since become a classic, taught in schools and widely read.Arturo's initiation to the tragedies and mediocrities of adulthood is contained within the geographical space of a beautiful Southern island, Procida, where he is born and raised. His wayward (in more than one meaning) father appears and disappears from the son's world. Each time he returns to Procida, he brings back from the continent fables, news of the 'real world', and, in one instance, a new wife (Arturo's mother died giving birth to him). "Arturo's island" is a cruel, yet spell-binding, fable on the enchantment of childhood and on the moment in which our life tips into adulthood. By the time you get to the end of the book, you'll wish you could go back to the beginning and start Arturo's - and your own- life all over again. A masterpiece.

I am unable to read this book. The print is so very small- it is a strain. There is no space between one paragraph and the next!

An Italian classic-Sublime - poetic - entrancing.... profound ...disturbing ....magical ...a classic republished and well worth the read

Elsa Morante was a type of southern Italian woman which in Italian is called "cattiva" (evil) but with an admiring connotation. It means a woman who is first herself, doesn't waste smiles, and speaks her mind, sexually too. "L'Isola d'Arturo" is written in a wonderful simple style, sensual Italianità, and mediterranean light. The story is unfolding word by word without the reader ever being fully aware what is told to him: A young man, about to enter military service tells his coming of age, his first sexual experiences, his father's marriage to a stepmother, his small stepbrother's birth, his father's love affair with a (male) criminal incarcerated in a neighboring prison, his father's past relationship with a North European homosexual... Elsa Morante put into the book what few male writers worldwide in the fifties were daring to write.The summed up content sounds like a realist novel, but while it is a realist novel, it is novel by a writer who writes like a modern Tolstoy. A wonderful airy, happy, witty story, set on a small mediterranean island where in April the sea is still cold but the first Germans are already taking bath...A wonderful novel by one of the greatest modern Italian writers.